September 8, 2012 - The Road to Drag Week 2012

[Cyclone03]

Jay although it's just bench racing...
How do you feel your 3 packages would have faired ET/Power wise to what you have seen of Drag Week results?

Will we see a seperate "Heres What Happened to...." thread?
Still waiting for the why you have CPS problems in car and not on the dyno.
Thanks
Lance

[jayb]

Hey Jay,  You're still working on these aren't you?  Making any progress?  I think it would be super cool if you got everything together at a casual pace and enjoyed the hell out of the cars driving the piss (and bugs) out of them for the next 11 months or so.  Drag week rolls around next year with no thrashing, you're nice and familiar with the cars and their habits and you can head out like it's just another weekday.  Except for the trailers of course.

I've actually been sidetracked onto my new CNC machine since a week after Drag Week, working on transferring the program for my SOHC inspection covers to my new machine, and also making a prototype of the FE intake adapter using some bar stock to test the fit.  The cars have been sitting...

[jayb]

Jay although it's just bench racing...
How do you feel your 3 packages would have faired ET/Power wise to what you have seen of Drag Week results?

Will we see a seperate "Heres What Happened to...." thread?
Still waiting for the why you have CPS problems in car and not on the dyno.
Thanks
Lance

Well, can't take away anything from the Drag Week winners, of course, because they made it there, and I didn't.  But my Shelby clone should be good for 9.00 to 9.20, and the winner in that class (Modified NA) averaged 10 flat.  In BB/NA, I think it would have been a real close race between the Mach 1 and CDMBill's Mustang.  The Mach 1 ran 6.35 in the eighth with a pretty lousy 60 foot time just before the event, so I'm thinking it would have been in the 9.80 to 9.90 range in the quarter, which was just about where Bill was.  Due to a quirk in the rules the Galaxie would have had to run in Unlimited, and of course it had no chance there...

On the crank sensor thing I spent the week of Drag Week working that problem really hard, and I've kind of concluded that the ems-pro gave up sometime over the last year.  No matter what I did, it just wouldn't recognize the signal from the crank sensor.  I picked up an MS3X Megasquirt and will re-wire the EFI system so I can use that; I like that setup a lot better than the ems-pro, and had great luck with it on the Mach 1 motor.

I'm waffling over future plans.  The engines are in the cars, but I'm tempted to pull them out and run them both on the dyno.  The 530" high riser got pulled off the dyno before I could try an upgrade on the cam, so I'd like to try that, plus I'd like to build a new intake manifold upper with runners about 15% smaller in cross sectional area and see if that improves the performance.  I'm also thinking about ditching the Peterson pump setup and going back to a stock pump and a vacuum pump for crankcase evacuation.

On the SOHC in the Shelby clone, since I never got the chance to put it on the dyno, I'd kind of like to run it there, and also install the sheet metal intake I built for it last year.  Then I could put the HIlborn setup back on the Galaxie.  Also, my original plan for this engine was to go dry sump, and I have time to do that now, so that would be interesting to do on the dyno as well. 

At present, the idea of pulling the engines back out of the cars, after I've just spent a bunch of time putting them in, is not very appealing.  I'm going to think about all this for a while before I do anything...

[machoneman]

Good that you're taking time to carefully think out your next moves as you always seem to do anyway. At the risk of Monday morning quarterbacking and answering a question you didn't ask (!).....

If it were my call, I'd run whatca brung as they say now, work out any kinks before the tracks close, do some road driving (purely for enjoyment!) and then yank either or both motors once the cold weather hits for good.  JMO.   

[fetorino]

Sounds like your dyno schedule is empty.  Maybe you can get some help to fill it up. 

[65er]

Done anything with the drag week cars lately Jay?  I know you've been pretty busy with the intake manifold setup, and that's looking super cool, but maybe you or the crew has a chance to mess with the hotrods a little here and there?

[jayb]

No, I'm afraid they've been pretty much just sitting.  After all the potholes in my road to Drag Week this year, I was pretty discouraged about the whole thing and just didn't muster the motivation to get the cars repaired to the point where I could race them this fall.  I also began thinking about making some modifications to the engines in both of the Mustangs, including bigger tube headers on the Mach 1, a bigger cam, and maybe another stint on the dyno to try to make 900 horsepower with that one.  Then I also decided I'd like to go back to my original plan with the big SOHC, and put a dry sump system on it.  So, I've got those projects to come this winter, after I get some of the initial work done on the FE intake adapter project.  I'll post information in the member projects section when something starts happening with the cars, but for now they are parked for the long, cold Minnesota winter...

[65er]

That's it man!  Hope to see you systematically locate, mark and patch all those potholes over the Winter so they can't slow you down in 2013.  After all the effort you and the crew put into the cars you deserve the fun part of driving the piss out of em.  I say finish em up the way there were going to be for Dragweek 2012 then drive em in the Springtime and do the upgrades as needed or as time permits so you can't get caught short.

 Yeah yea, easy for me to say from behind my computer but that's just my viewpoint and my suggestion.  Of course my car MUST stay on the road.  I need to stick to weekend upgrades or else I don't get to work on Monday.  But on the other hand I get to enjoy my hotrod more than just about anybody.  I bought the Galaxie 26 months and 24,000 miles ago.  I've put four motors in it and getting ready to do that TKO swap in a few weeks.  Then maybe next Summer I'll put in a big stroker motor...  It just keeps getting better!   Maybe I'll be able to take it to Dragweek in about, oh, say five more years... 

Not raggin at ya Jay, just don't want you to lose track of it and really hope to see you get to enjoy all that badass hardware you've put together.

[cdmbill2]

I think it's time for "The Road to Drag Week 2013". We pretty much know its starting at Beech Bend this year and all the track info will be out on the 15th.

What say you Jay?, Joel?